The Promise and Peril of Environmental Justice

In this informal lunch discussion, Christopher H. Foreman, Jr., a Brookings senior fellow in the Governmental Studies program, will introduce his new Brookings book, The Promise and Peril of Environmental Justice.

In the book, Foreman critiques the motivation and the means by which environmental justice activists have brought to broad attention the effects of environmental policy on minority and low-income citizens. And he sees the movement, in its current incarnation, as impeding rational environmental policy debate. He recognizes legitimate concerns underlying the environmental justice cause, but sees much of the movement’s rhetoric as obscuring more pressing public health and safety issues affecting poor and minority populations.